


Heteroph-chromia

by deathishauntedbyhumans



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: Anesthesia, Confessions, Drugged Confessions, Fluff, Heterochromia, Inspired By Tumblr, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Pre-Slash, The Author Knows Nothing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, brief mentions of injuries, bullshit medical procedures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 15:14:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12937977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathishauntedbyhumans/pseuds/deathishauntedbyhumans
Summary: “I have het’roph’bia,” Dakota repeated, sounding terrified, as though he truly believed that Balthazar was going to jump on him for it. “‘S why I wear the glasses. I didn’t wan’ you to know b’cause people usually think it’s stupid and laugh and I didn’t wan’ you to laugh.”“Do you happen to have heterochromia?” Balthazar asked, and Dakota licked his lips before making a soft sound of affirmation.“‘S what I said,” he mumbled. “Het’rochromia.”





	Heteroph-chromia

**Author's Note:**

> For once I didn't have to stress about whether or not I should put "major character death" as a warning for a fic with these two idiots lmao.

“My arm f’ls funny.” The slurred words jarred Balthazar from his sleepy stupor, and he was fully awake within seconds, jumping to attention and sitting up properly in the hard chair he’d been offered. 

They’d been on a pistachio-driven mission --what else was new?-- when there had been a complication with the shipment they were supposed to intercept. The truck they were following had swerved suddenly to avoid a lamppost that had fallen into the middle of the road (Balthazar fully expected that the Murphy boy had likely been in the area to cause the problem), and Dakota, who had been driving, managed to maneuver their car so that they wouldn’t drive into the back of the truck. They hadn’t managed to avoid the lamppost, though, and the airbags had gone off, knocking Dakota unconscious and breaking his arm in the process. Balthazar had come out of it less the worse for wear, and would have taken care of the situation himself had there not been witnesses to the entire debacle. As it was, someone watching the scene unfold had called an emergency number, and they’d been taken to a hospital. 

Twenty-first century hospitals were rather strange, but they did their jobs well enough and weren’t too dirty, so Balthazar hadn’t fought against it. Most of his focus had been on Dakota, regardless.

They’d taken Dakota into surgery to repair his arm, as the bone had been jutting out through his skin. (Balthazar hadn’t wanted to look more than the first glance; he’d never been very well-versed around blood or other injury.) Once Balthazar had been deemed alright and the surgery --a relatively easy process, or so he’d been told by a sympathetic male nurse-- had been completed, Balthazar had been permitted to stay by Dakota’s side as he came out from the anesthesia they had given him. 

“Dakota!” Balthazar couldn’t help the relieved smile on his face, or the tone of his voice, but he assumed that Dakota would still be too out of it to care. He leaned forward, placing one hand gently on the other man’s shoulder as he, too, attempted to sit up. “Do be careful; you don’t want to injure yourself further.” 

Dakota seemed to relax into the touch, but the expression on his face remained hopelessly confused. His eyes were narrowed, squinting, and he was blinking too much to be considered normal. “Wha--? Balth…?” 

“Yes, it’s me, Dakota.”

“Where’m I?” Dakota slurred, and Balthazar carefully removed his hand from Dakota’s shoulder. 

“You’re in a hospital.” Balthazar glanced behind him, to make sure that there wasn’t anyone around to accidentally overhear. He lowered his voice a little. “In the twenty-first century. There was an accident with the last mission. Do you remember?” 

Dakota seemed to be struggling to keep his eyes open, and he thought for a moment before shaking his head and then wincing. “Ouch,” he complained. Balthazar shook his head in response. 

“It’s alright. You hit your head when we hit a lamppost. Just try not to move so much.” Balthazar realised that his tone was too fond a second too late, but it didn’t seem to bother Dakota. On the contrary, Dakota squinted at him and then huffed out a soft sigh and relaxed against the hospital-grade pillows again. 

“...Glasses?” It was minutes before Dakota spoke again, and when he finally did, Balthazar frowned in confusion. 

“Sorry?” 

“M’glasses,” Dakota mumbled. The arm with the cast on it jerked a little, as though Dakota was attempting to move it, and then he clumsily raised his uninjured hand to his face. It dropped against his nose and he made a sound of discomfort. 

“Oh!” Understanding dawned, and Balthazar reached into his own pocket, where he’d stashed Dakota’s strange tinted glasses after they’d fallen during the accident. “I have them, yes.” 

“Don’t want you to see,” Dakota mumbled from under his arm, and Balthazar frowned once more, hesitating with the glasses in his hand. He gently nudged Dakota’s elbow with the tips of his knuckles, and only received a wordless groan in response. 

“Dakota, what’s wrong?” Balthazar asked, concern seeping into his voice. When Dakota didn’t answer immediately, Balthazar placed the glasses down on the counter across from the bed and stood, taking a gentle hold of Dakota’s arm to help him move it off his face. 

“Tha’s heavy,” he mumbled, and Balthazar huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh if he hadn’t been so worried. 

“Dakota. What’s wrong?” he repeated, and Dakota --still squinting-- finally heaved out a huge breath of air and shut his eyes tightly. 

“I have heter’phobia,” he mumbled, and it took Balthazar a good thirty seconds to even begin to attempt to process that statement. 

“...I’m sorry?” 

“I have het’roph’bia,” Dakota repeated, sounding terrified, as though he truly believed that Balthazar was going to jump on him for it. “‘S why I wear the glasses. I didn’t wan’ you to know b’cause people usually think it’s stupid and laugh and I didn’t wan’ you to laugh.” 

There was a prolonged silence as Balthazar attempted to digest this new information, but a quick glance at the glasses helped to put the pieces together in his head. A slow, ridiculously fond smile spread over his face, and he placed a gentle hand over Dakota’s uninjured one, now lying over his torso. Dakota peered at him nervously.

“Do you happen to have heterochromia?” Balthazar asked, and Dakota licked his lips before making a soft sound of affirmation. 

“‘S what I said,” he mumbled. “Het’rochromia.” 

Refraining from correcting him, Balthazar merely shook his head. “Dakota, it doesn’t matter to me what colour your eyes are.” It did, but not in the way Dakota was so obviously worried about. From a scientific standpoint, Balthazar had always found medical anomilies such as heterochromia fascinating. And from a more personal standpoint… Well, he already thought Dakota was incredibly handsome. Having eyes of multiple colours wasn’t going to change that for a moment. “You needn’t be worried about such a trivial matter.” 

The squinting was intentional, Balthazar could see that now, especially as Dakota blinked once and looked at him more clearly before obviously catching himself and squinting again. 

“You’re not laughing,” Dakota mumbled breathlessly, and Balthazar shook his head, still smiling fondly. 

“Of course not.” 

Slowly, Dakota opened his eyes, looking at him properly again, as though somehow waiting for the other shoe to drop. Balthazar didn’t laugh, didn’t make so much as a movement, but took the time to study Dakota’s eyes in the harsh light of the hospital room. And they were breathtaking. Now that Balthazar had seen them without those ridiculous tinted glasses on, he was pretty certain that he could never go back again. 

One eye was brown, and a delightful shade of it at that. The other was an icy shade of blue, a piercing colour that, even clouded by anesthesia as it was, seemed to have the abillity to see right through him. 

“I wouldn’t laugh at you for something like this, Dakota.” Not something so obviously important to him. Not something that didn’t even seem funny in the slightest. 

There was a hand squeezing his own, suddenly, and Balthazar realised (his cheeks reddening at the thought) that he hadn’t actually removed his hand from atop Dakota’s. In his sudden interest in Dakota’s eyes, he had completely forgotten about the gesture, and had been oblivious to Dakota turning his hand upright and gripping his own. He also found that he didn’t mind, even if he doubted that Dakota would remember much --if any-- of this exchange once he was back to his usual self. 

“Y’should call me Vinnie,” Dakota said sleepily, still gripping his hand lightly as he relaxed back against his pillow. Balthazar blinked. 

“...You call me Cavendish,” he pointed out fairly. 

“Call you Cav,” Dakota agreed. “Also Balth. Balthy. Cavendish. Lotsa things. You could call me Vinnie. Or Vin. Vincent.” He made a face, tugging at Balthazar’s hand a little, until he acquiesced and allowed Dakota to shift into a more comfortable position without letting go of him. “Nah. Not Vincent. Never liked bein’ Vincent. Liked bein’ Vinnie.” 

“...You should rest, Vinnie,” Balthazar said gently after a good moment of hesitation. Any awkwardness he felt was more than worth it to see every inch of Dakota’s sleepy smile. He hummed in agreement, and before Balthazar could say anything else on the matter, Dakota had fallen asleep again with Balthazar’s hand still trapped firmly in his own. 

Balthazar did try once, briefly, to extricate it, but he didn’t want to risk waking Dakota up. If he had to sacrifice the use of one of his arms for a little while to ensure Dakota’s safety and rest… Well, he supposed it really wasn’t too much of a sacrifice for him to make. 

**Author's Note:**

> I CANNOT BELIEVE. 
> 
> This piece was VERY largely inspired by this piece of fanart because it's really freaking cute and I couldn't help myself. (Honestly please just take a look at it if you haven't seen it and tell me it's not the cutest fucking thing in the world.) 
> 
> I'm a sucker for the heterochromia headcanon can you tell. 
> 
> Come scream about things with me on tumblr @deathishauntedbyhumans.


End file.
